Concrete Table Top - how to improve photorealism

[GreenM11]

Good Evening, I got stuck a bit an need a guidance on how to move ahead with one chalange.

I am trying to re-create a model of table top made of Concrete.
My current rendering was judged by my 7 years old son as fake.

What options there are to re-creat those:
- air bubbles
- rough patches of surface
- corners

What tools I shall be considering to potentially involve with similar objects made of concrete.

Based on what you see in regards to a mesh and materials, what I could improve and is not setup
correctly or optimal?

I have attached a c4d file with the object. As well, as some quick reference pictures of real objects.

Based on photo would you point me to a good source of a smooth concrete textures?

Thank you
 

[Beanzvision]

Hi there, the Corona material library has some good polished concrete's. Or they can be tweaked to suit your needs. Other things to sell the job would also be the lighting. Perhaps a good interior HDRI might help as well. ;)

[GreenM11]

Dear Benjamin,

thank you for suggestions.

Could you help to assess if what I came up as my workflow will fire back at some point.
The biggest concern is that quality of rendering will suffer.

1: I have a physical object (concrete top in this case)
2: Based on a photo of top of the surface, in Substance 3D Sampler, I create a seamless material and all maps
3: I create in C4D concret top and export to Zbrush.
4: In Zbrush, I am adding some structural imperfections, damages, etc. I create UVs and export low poly with displacement
5: Back in to C4D, where I create a material to texture above mentioned concrete top.
- for AO, Base Colour/Diffuse, Roughness and Normals I am using seamless Maps from Substance 3D Sampler
- for Bump, I am using Displacement Map from Zbrush

Those are small imperfections, I am not using Displacement Channel in Corona

It kinnda work, but I have some questions...

How much of an issue is this mixing of textures. Do I loose a lot of potential photorealism by doing it.

I am a bit intimidated by Substance 3D Painter. Shall I, however, put energy to learn how to texture concrete top
model out of Zbrush there? With the help of my Maps from Substance 3D Sampler?

I am also only planning to learn to support visualization of my concrete creations.
Meaning I would like to limit the numbers of different softwares to support visualizations.

For small objects, I am using cross-polarization photogrammetry. It seems that I manage to get decent results.

But for bigger objects (like this table top, or for some prototyping I need the above workflow with modeling and realistic textures).

Welcome feedback.

I have attched C4D file and screenshots.

Thank you

[BigAl3D]

Since you have a Displacement map, why not use actual displacement instead of putting it the Bump channel? Maybe both.